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Death Guard
The Pale King Barbarus is a planet divided. In the mountains lives noble beings and in valleys lives someone who once was human. The planet is covered in a poisonous fog that envelopes the mountains and keeps the lowly humans from ever becoming more than simple folks, but the noble people in the mountains are immune to this poison. Mortarion fell on the planet Barbarus into the corpses from a recent battle. Here some low-land dwellers looking for scraps found him and took him in. They named him Mortarion because he was found among the dead. He grew among them until one day a Lord and his personal guard came by. All people from his village ran and hid themselves. Only Mortarion remained in the field in which they were working. He just stood up tall with his scythe in hand. The Lord was intrigued by this pale young man and send out his best warrior to test him. Mortarion easily bested the warrior and the Lord invited him to join him at his palace in the mountains. Mortarion followed and readily found himself at home no longer among cowards, thieves and scraphunters. And he found that he also had some tolerance towards the fog due to his superhuman body. He could not climb to the highest castles but most others were reachable. The Lord and Mortarion became friends and the Lord taught him all he knew of warfare and leadership. Of how the peasants in the valley needed to be controlled and constantly thinned out otherwise they would overpopulate and their ecosystem would collapse. And since they always had ample bodies to experiment with the nobles had learned to animate the dead flesh and had found many uses for this art. Mortarion very much agreed on the principles of humans needed guidance and protection from themselves and also picked up the art of necromancy. So when the Emperor landed on Barbarus Mortarion instantly greeted him seing for himself a perfect noble, leader and herder of the weak. In return the Emperor took him in and gave him command of the Dusk Raiders, the XIV chapter. The Great Crusade During the crusade, when soldiers of the Death Guard fell Mortarion had to recruit new soldiers. He would have liked to fill his army with the noble of the mountains on Barbarus and indeed they made great officers, but they were too few in numbers to make for the bulk of the army so although hesitant he started to recruit the scurvy looking humans of the valleys. As time went on the humans of Barbarus began to fill up more and more of the army until they were more than half. This divide in the Legion made for strenuous times. The humans of Barbarus were unable to fully let go of their old habits of thieving, backstabbing and infighting, and the officers had a hard time controlling the army. Mortarion saw that they never would rise to be more than they were, so he made sure they never rose in grades beyond simple soldiers. In battle they were drugged in order to ensure they followed command, which gave them an empty look in their eyes. The Dornian Heresy Dorns plan with the Death Guard was simple. Lure Mortarion and his force through the Warp where the corruption of Nurgle could spread through the Barbarus part of the legion and let them revolt and overtake the ships. But Dorn did not know of Mortarions true strength as commander of the dead bodies. And in the darkest hour deepest in the warp seing him fighting the horrors of Nurgle Mortarion used what has until the been a childish toy and animated every soldier as he fell and used them against the revolting rebels both to protect himself and his fellow officers and also because they were untouchable to the diseases spreading from the rebels. His officers of Barbarus descent saw his action and followed suit. His officers of terran descent were horrified at first. Both towards the rebels but also towards the dead men walking in front of them. But inspired by their First Captain Calas Typhon, Lord of Barbarus they adapted and found it a necessary tool to control the diseased rebel pack. When they finally exited the warp, the army was transformed. Although all officers were fully alive, the soldiers were dead. Their power armor modified to keep their bodies from decomposing. To all others this was not to separate from the drugged soldiers of old and the Death Guard liked to keep all others in the dark. But their troubles in the Warp had delayed them from the Battle of Terra and all they could do was take up pursuit of the traitors.